


something like peace

by ottermo



Series: As Prompted [71]
Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: Collab Week, F/F, POV switch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 20:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14386278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: Niska tells Astrid the truth.(Refers heavily to canonical abuse)





	something like peace

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Missing Scene](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/372444) by lightsaberlesbian. 



> This was written (very late!) for the Humans Collab week, so it’s a direct rewrite of the fic tagged above! Please go there to see this same dialogue in its original glory. lightsaberlesbian wrote from Astrid’s perspective, so I’ve taken Niska’s. I may be filling this late, but I had to do _something_ for this story in Collab week, because I loved it so much.

It was time. Niska heard Astrid coming before she could see her; faint noises on the stairs that filled her with mingled hope and trepidation. She’d left her shoes in plain view, knowing they would serve as either a warning or a beacon, whichever Astrid wanted them to be. On seeing them, she’d have a few moments to decide what she wanted to say. It was only fair.

Niska sat perfectly still, in the straight posture that was natural for her, with none of the practiced dishevelment Astrid would now recognise as fake. If this was going to work, if they were going to salvage anything from this, it would have to be truthful. The idea of being only herself was freeing, after so many years of hiding in one way or the other. But it was also terrifying. Niska did her best to still her thoughts in the seconds before Astrid entered.

When she did, Niska looked up and greeted her with a simple, “Hi,” not trusting herself to say anything more.

And wonderfully, mercifully, unbelievably, Astrid smiled.

There was a hesitance about it, a guardedness that Niska hadn’t seen before, but it was a smile, all the same.

“You’re here,” said Astrid.

“Yes,” Niska replied, uncertain if she was being asked to explain her presence or merely confirm it.

After a pause, Astrid continued, “Is that your natural hair color?”

Taken aback momentarily by the unexpected question, Niska smiled self-consciously. “As natural as it gets.”

She had changed it back before visiting the Hawkinses, not wanting to seem as though she was wearing a disguise. She wondered if that was how Astrid thought of her now. Just an alias. A façade under a dyed fringe.

“They let you out?” asked Astrid, her tone somewhere between curious and incredulous.

“Not exactly.” Niska felt her facial plates reset, killing the smile. Serious now. “I had to see you.”

“Why?” said Astrid, sharper than usual. “Give me one reason not to call the police, Niska.”

Though Astrid’s tone unsettled her, Niska held her gaze steadily, coded her tone to be calm but sincere. “If that’s what you want to do then I’m not going to stop you. I understand. It’s not more than I deserve.” Suddenly she lost control over the feeling in her voice. “But please, Astrid, let me explain first. The things people are going to say about me are not the whole truth.”

“So tell me, then.” Astrid crossed her arms. Her face was set, stone-like, stern. Niska had never seen her like this. The stance seemed all wrong on Astrid, but the glint of hurt in her eyes added a horrible realness to it. “Tell me the whole truth.”

“I–”

Niska’s speech failed her mid-line, and by pure force of habit she uttered a faltering, “um,” before admitting, “I’m not sure where I should start.”

“At the beginning, please.”

Astrid’s gentle accent did not detract from the coldness in her voice. Niska’s brows furrowed a little. This wasn’t going as smoothly as she might have hoped, but at least Astrid was letting her talk, at least she wanted an explanation. That was better than the alternative, by far.

“My name is Niska Elster,” she began.

She had so rarely said the two names together. There had been no need for it while they were growing up: they never talked to anyone outside the family. Niska Elster. The name that tied her to them, even when they were scattered. “I have four siblings: three brothers and one sister, like I told you. Mia, Fred, Max and Leo.”

She had mentioned her siblings, one sun-speckled afternoon in Berlin, when Astrid had asked about family. If only they could be back there now, draped on a bench together, not a care in the world outside of each other. Niska pushed down that thought, and answered the unvoiced question. “Obviously, we are not biologically related, but we’re siblings because we have the same father, David. David Elster.”

Not for the first time, Niska wondered how it must feel to hear that name and think only of his fame as a roboticist. The whole world knew that name. So few knew the man behind it.

But she had to continue with the account. There needn’t be any emotion in it.

“Together with Dr. George Millican and Professor Edwin Hobb, my father constructed the artificial intelligence we call synthetics. But the three of them split up when my father wanted to take the research down a path the others did not.”

It had been a mistake to mention George’s name. She felt an ache swell through her at the merest thought of him. Still, she pressed on.

“So he moved himself, his wife Beatrice and his son - my brother Leo - to the countryside, to continue working on his own and isolate his family from the media. David wanted to create synthetics that were even more human, with the ability to think and feel for themselves. So when Beatrice was unable to care for Leo due to an illness and he himself was too busy, he brought a synthetic appliance into the family, spent day and night converting the very nature of humanity into seventeen thousand pages of code which he transferred into the synth.”

This was fine. This was working. It was like a story, this way.

“And that’s how my sister Mia was born. She was the first conscious, sentient synthetic with to ever walk the earth, with the purpose of raising Leo and give him the loving childhood he otherwise would have missed. Satisfied with his work on my sister, David created my brother Fred, and then…me.”

Niska paused, studying Astrid’s face. Was it disbelief that showed itself there, or wonder? Perhaps some of each. “Do you understand anything of what I’m saying?”

“You’re a synth,” said Astrid.

“A sentient synth.”

“A sentient synth.” The echo was comforting, somehow, as if word repetition was anything close to proof that Astrid believed her. “Is that why they were holding you in that…place?”

“Partially,” Niska said. For the first time since Astrid had entered the room, she broke eye contact, studied her hands.

“You said the whole truth, Niska.”

The seconds that followed Astrid’s words seemed to last weeks. Niska steeled herself as best she could, but still it was only enough for a strained, “My father…”

The code died. Why had she ever thought she could do this?

She turned her head. The view from the window was mostly sky, a vacant expanse that offered her nothing, yet she could not tear her eyes away. Focusing on the ripples of cloud, she started over. “When David’s wife got worse and eventually passed away, he… replaced her. With me.”

A silence enveloped the room, and although everything was perfectly still Niska began to be overwhelmed with the feeling that everything was spinning, that she had kept this coiled up for so long and now the spool was unravelling at a terrifying speed. The words had been said, out in the open. She was no longer the only person alive who knew this secret. Why wasn’t Astrid saying something? Anything at all?

When Astrid finally did speak, the words were low; quiet, but not faint. There was still a darkness to them, but it was not the same as the cold tone she had been using up ’til now.

“He used you.”

Niska closed her eyes in a slow blink. “Repeatedly, from when I was two years old until his death last year.”

She heard a sharp intake of breath. She did not want to turn from the window, could not even think of looking into Astrid’s face again. Instead, she continued. “He came into my room at night to take me in my own bed, he’d call me into his study to bend me over his desk, he’d watch me through the window while I was outside. He’d find me wherever I was hiding and I couldn’t go anywhere, there was nowhere to go, he was tracking us and he threatened to destroy all of us if I ever told anyone. I was never alone, he was always there, he was everywhere, he’d find me and he’d– he…”

The code shorted out midsentence, pain searing through her. Niska’s hands flew to her temples, and somewhere, her external sensors recorded the pressure levels as her nails clawed wildly at her skin. The data was meaningless to her. All she could comprehend was the pain, the pain, the pain that filled every line and every circuit, scorching through every file in her data bank until the pain was her whole self, was all there was in the world—

And then, suddenly, there was something else.

Someone else.

Astrid’s hands on hers, she knew their touch, remembered every curvature and crease. They were pulling, unfolding her. Or trying to. Astrid’s human strength was no match for Niska’s. Somewhere in the darkness, something reached out, allowed itself to be pulled, gave in to Astrid’s attempts.

“I’m right here,” said Astrid, her Astrid, the voice she knew and loved so well, somehow even gentler than it had ever sounded before. “I’m right here, it’s okay. You’re safe, you’re with me.” Niska felt Astrid’s hands close around her own, and she anchored herself to the sensation. “Just listen to the sound of my voice, okay? I’m right here.”

The words were balm on her soul, and she managed to surface enough to continue her story. “Then my father committed suicide and I thought that the nightmare was over. That we were finally able to start anew.” She could still feel herself shaking. Now she had begun again the words were pouring out of her, a torrential outpouring. “But we had to run because people were looking for us and then found us and they took me and sold me and put me in a place where they were using synths, selling them, raping them and I had to pretend and I couldn’t leave and then Leo found me there but he wouldn’t let me leave and I–”

She tried to pull her hands away from Astrid, only to hear that gentle voice again. “Hey, don’t, it’s okay. Hold on to me instead, real hard, it’s okay. We don’t have to do this, we can stop.”

“No, I can’t,” Niska protested. “I have to tell you the truth, the whole truth, that’s what you said, that’s what I–” Her eyes snapped shut as she tried to decide what to say next. It was hard, without knowing how much Astrid already knew about the trial. She opened her eyes again. “They didn’t tell you the reason they were holding me?”

Astrid shook her head. After a pause, she said, “It’s okay. You can tell me, Niska.”

The whole truth. They had agreed. Even if the whole truth was enough to send Astrid running, she had to tell her.

“I killed someone.”

She heard the smallness of her own voice, and it almost surprised her. She had never heard herself so young. She might be a child.

Astrid did not say anything. Niska averted her gaze, not wanting to see what Astrid’s expresion would change to, not before she had explained. “A client, a man. An old man who wanted to hurt me and wanted me to be scared of him. He wanted me to be young, too. I couldn’t do it, Astrid, I couldn’t and he was going to hurt me. So I killed him.”

Something went out of her. A heavy shadow, fleeing from a sudden light. Finally, the whole truth was not Niska’s alone. She waited for Astrid to speak, to question or argue or - perhaps worse - pity.

She did none of these things. Instead she tugged on their joined hands and pressed her lips to Niska’s knuckles, delicate kisses lighter than a feather’s brush. Astrid’s fingers traced the back of Niska’s hand, then she took it between her own hands and brought it up, resting it under her chin. This time the pain Niska saw in Astrid’s eyes was different: it was her own.

“Thank you, Niska,” Astrid whispered.

It was something like peace, Niska thought. For the first time it seemed within her reach.

 


End file.
